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28 Feb 2011 21:32

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Politics: Will John Boehner’s “put the budget on layaway” plan stick?

  • issue Obama and the GOP are at a stalemate with the budget, and there’s a real danger the government might shut down later this week. Great.
  • stopgap As a way to prevent that from happening, House Speaker John Boehner came up with an offer to put the government on layaway for two weeks.
  • problem The sticking point? Obama wants a full month. Boehner may not be willing to put the budget on layaway for nearly that long. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

27 Feb 2011 20:02

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World: Is John Boehner backing off government shutdown stance entirely?

  • Americans want the government to stay open, and they want it to spend less money. We don’t need to shut down the government to accomplish that. We just need to do what the American people are asking of us.
  • John Boehner (in expected statements) • Discussing the next steps his party plans to help encourage spending cuts. Note that he appears to be backing away from the idea of a government shutdown. Perhaps hard-line stances are proving a little too, uh, risky for the GOP right now?  source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Feb 2011 17:07

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Politics: A Senate revival? The secondary F-35 engine that just won’t die

  • yes House GOP leadership, led by Speaker John Boehner (whose state stood to benefit), fought for additional funding for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s second engine.
  • no However, it was forced out of the bill thanks to the hard work of Rep. Tom Rooney, who corralled the freshmen Republicans to block the amendment. Whoo!
  • yes Now, Sens. John Kerry and Scott Brown, among others, are working to ensure the funding gets back in the bill. Hey, at least it’s bipartisan, right? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

19 Feb 2011 22:30

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Politics: Timothy Geithner on GOP’s spending diet plan: This will hurt jobs

  • In our judgment, the continuing opposition…in the House would undermine and damage our capacity to create jobs and expand the economy.
  • Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner • Claiming that the GOP’s spending-cut-heavy plan threatens to severely hurt job creation. Geithner’s advice? Strengthen the economic recovery, then focus on deficit-cutting. “I am very confident that the Democrats and the Republicans will come together on a program to not just reduce spending but reduce long-term deficits,” he continued. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 1 Comment • Permalink

18 Feb 2011 15:50

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U.S.: Another paper tiger? House pushes to strip Planned Parenthood funding

  • 240-185 to strip the org of funding source
  • » This has nothing to do with abortions: This bill, which only passed in the GOP-controlled house, affects preventative-health services like cancer screenings or contraception – not abortions, which are maybe 3% of Planned Parenthood’s entire array of services and are already not supported through federal funding – at the grand cost of $330 million. Now, the likelihood that this would actually affect Planned Parenthood as-is? That’s very low, because this is part of that whole Republican-pushed spending plan that will likely not get through the Senate or Obama in its current form, but the fact that it’s even on the table is getting a lot of people worked up.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

17 Feb 2011 10:14

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Politics: Who’s Tom Rooney, and how did he beat John Boehner, anyway?

  • We had to school them quickly. We hit a lot of them very fast, and told them it was a cut in front of them today, versus what may or may not happen in the future.
  • Florida Rep. Tom Rooney • Explaining the process he used to corral freshmen House members to help kill the funding for a competitive engine for a F-35 Joint Strike Fighter – against the plans of John Boehner, who pushed the bill on House leaders largely because the chief beneficiary, GE, is a major employer in Ohio, his home state. The plan, which would’ve cost $450 million, wasn’t to build the engine itself but to have a backup just in case something goes wrong. Rooney, a sophomore congressman, corralled 47 freshman House members to score a 233-198 vote on an amendment that scuttled the program. Not bad, kid. You’re gonna go far. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Feb 2011 20:13

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U.S.: PATRIOT Act renewal passes House – with simple majority in tow

  • last week It appeared a far-right uprising had sidelined the PATRIOT Act’s renewal in the House, with the bill falling short of the two-thirds total it needed to succeed.
  • this week By passing the bill with rules that only required a simple majority, the extension will go over to the Senate. The vote totals were nearly the same as last week. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

11 Feb 2011 00:33

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Politics: Ethics group to Congress: Stop sleeping in your offices!

  • [Congressional] office buildings are not dorms or frat houses. If members didn’t want to find housing in Washington, they shouldn’t have run for Congress in the first place.
  • CREW‘s Melanie Sloan • On the tendency of legislators to sleep in their offices rather than rent apartments. Apparently, more than thirty members of Congress (including the GOP’s budget man, Paul Ryan) currently do this, and CREW is concerned that they may be receiving an inadvertent tax break in doing so. One of the writers here at ShortFormBlog once spent a summer living on other people’s couches, so we don’t exactly feel we’re in a place to criticize. What’s wrong with being frugal? source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

10 Feb 2011 11:07

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U.S.: Report: Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl announcing retirement

This will probably get lost in the Mubarak resignation shuffle, but the Senate Minority Whip will likely announce he’s not running in 2012. Whew! Lots of news today! source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

08 Feb 2011 21:07

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Politics: PATRIOT Act renewal not sure thing … thanks to the Tea Party

  • renewal The House is going to vote on whether or not to permanently extend the PATRIOT Act, that uber-controversial privacy-exploiting leftover from the Bush era.
  • denial Unfortunately for the GOPers pushing the bill’s renewal, this isn’t the same Congress that passed the bill, and the party’s Tea Party backers may not support it. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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